Tamale, June 19, GNA - The Ghana Highway Authority (GHA) is to take more deterrent measures to ensure that the legislation to check overloading of heavy duty trucks were strictly enforced to give the country's road network a longer lifespan. Mr. Nicholas Dome Brown, Axle Load Manager of the Ghana Highway Authority, said though there are laws in place and are being enforced they are less deterrent. The situation, he said, had allowed drivers and truck owners to overload their trucks resulting in heavy destruction to roads and over-burdening the national budget in the reconstruction of these roads. Mr. Brown was addressing stakeholders in the road sector in Tamale on Thursday to sensitize them on the negative effects of overloading and to seek their views on the draft bill before cabinet aimed at ensuring that drivers load within the required limits.

Representatives from the GHA, Driver and Vehicle Licence Authority (DVLA), National Road Safety Commission (NRSC), Motor Traffic and Transport Unit (MTTU) of the Ghana Police Service and transport owners attended the one-day forum.

Mr. Brown said the bill, if passed, would among other things, ensure safety on the roads, give more profit to truck owners, timely arrival of both imported and exported goods and boost the country's economy. The drivers and truck owners expressed concern that commodities such as maize, millet, yam, as well as cattle could not be weighed easily by the scale used by the Axle Load stations and called for more efficient scales for weighing.